Flaccid Penis Songs
As anyone who has ever met me will probably tell you, I am one of the bitchiest music snobs you will ever meet--a fact rendered particularly bizarre by the fact that I don't actually listen to good music. I'm really into dance punk at the moment which, objectively, is discordant and horrible, but it does have it's redeeming qualities, namely 1) it's obscure and gives me indie cred and 2) catchy beats. Take The Rapture or !!! or The Fever or, for that matter, any other dance-punk band save Hot Hot Heat (which is more Emo anyway). Basically, the music these bands produce is an electroclash/funk confection of keyboard, kickass samples, industrial beats and cowbells, combined with tuneless screeching and droning, and profane, juvenile lyrics for example, "Pardon my Freedom" by !!!:
Like I give a fuck
Like a give a shit about that fuck
Like I give a motherfucking shit
Like I give a fuck
Like I give a shit about that shit
You can tell the president suck my fucking dick
Did that sounds smart?
Like I give a frick
I'm glad that there are musicians out there who take an active interest in world politics and use their position to make real changes in this crazy mixed-up hegemony we live in.
Okay, so they're not exactly intellectual sophisticates. At least their music is catchy.
Having established my credibility and objectivity, I move on to the main topic of this post: overplayed songs that can be compared to flaccid penii. Penises. Top 40 songs which, in my dubious opinion, are limp, fatuous and vapid, adding nothing to anybody's life beyond noise pollution.
Hold on, I actually mean Top 40 songs that were in wide circulation a couple of months (or maybe years?) ago because I just had a look at the Top 20 Music Videos played on MTV and I've never heard any of these songs in my entire life, except for "Somebody Told Me" by The Killers and "Take Me Out" by Franz Ferdinand and maybe "Vindicated" by Dashboard Confessional, but I can't tell the difference between any of his songs anyway. Who the hell is Lloyd Banks? Ashlee Simpson? Sugarcult? What just happened?
"My Immortal" by Evanescence
Just when you thought nu metal was finally dead, cremated and scattered to the winds, Evanescence popped out of nowhere with their shitty rapcore nu metal single "Bring Me to Life" with its ambiguously religious lyrics, facile metal power chords and scary pasty female singer whose gloomy voice suspiciously resembles that of Aaron Lewis from Staind. I'll admit, I liked this song the first four times I heard it. By the fifth time I heard it, I felt a little tired inside my head. By the next day, when I had heard it seven or eight times on the radio and seen the video six times, I hated it with a burning passion. Then they released "My Immortal," which I heard several times on my six hour drive back from DC. I think I first heard it while driving through Delaware, and it made me want to settle down and raise a family there. Which, as we all know, is a fate worth than death.
First of all, the chorus: "When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears/When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears/And I've held your hand through all of these years/But you still have all of me" Sounds to me like somebody has an anxiety disorder. Doesn't seem too healthy. No wonder they broke up. A man who cries, screams and needs his girlfriend to hold his hand all the time is either uber-emo, or isn't ready for a mature and fulfilling relationship. Either way, it probably wasn't worth it. And he definitely wasn't worth writing a tedious four-and-a-half minute song about. Alright, it's not, you know, epic or anything, but it still is pretty fucking long considering how boring this woman's voice is; yeah, she has a powerful voice, but she also sounds like she's in her early stages of rigor mortis. Dragging notes out of her is like pulling teeth.
Cheer up, gloomy gus! The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and just because your music sucks doesn't mean you have to be sad!
"Screaming Infidelities" by Dashboard Confessional
There are very few artists who write worthwhile lyrics. I can only name a few off the top of my head: Lou Reed, Elliott Smith, Bono, whatever. I don't usually give a shit about lyrics, because they're usually pretty dumb, but the words to this song really irk me. They are what sets this song apart from all of Chris Carrabba's other whiny emo ballads: "But as for me/I wish that I were anywhere with anyone/Making out." So much for your sensitive side. Word's out, all you want is some sweet, sweet lovin'.
I hate you.
The other line that annoys me is "Your hair, it's everywhere/Screaming infidelities." Really scraping the bottom of the barrel for that rhyme, weren't we? I can't quite figure out if he's personifying the hair. Is the hair screaming? Or is the fact that she shed hair all over your bathroom evidence that she is cheating on you? Or is it that your song makes no fucking sense.
"Your Body is a Wonderland" by John Mayer
Most girls find this song incredibly sweet and cute and gooshy. I, on the other hand, was not given the ability to identify cuteness. I'm just an insensitive prick, me, and I also just don't see why the statements "One pair of candy lips and your bubblegum tongue," "I love the shape you take when crawling towards the pillowcase" and "Your body is a wonderland, your body is a wonder (I'll use my hands)" make girls go weak at the knees. If somebody said "Damn baby, you frustrate me, I know you're all mine all mine all mine, but you look so good it hurts sometimes" to me, I would be somewhat flabberghasted, and then I would start laughing. Then I would walk away and tell all my friends what dumb that frat-boy with the guitar, the feminine lips and the dark circles under his eyes just said to me. And the lipgloss. By the way, time to start laying off the makeup, Johnny-boy.
On the other hand, if he tried that line with that drunk blonde chick with the ponytail over there in the blue polo shirt over there, it might work. Clearly, I'm destined to be the crazy old neighbourhood witch with no teeth, an overgrown yard, whose house smells of old beetroot, who doesn't give back kids' balls and who knits sweaters for her multitude of mangy cats.
Well, I used to have a longer list of flaccid penis songs, but I don't remember what they are now. These are the only three I remember. Also, I've been sitting in Starbucks for almost three hours, stealing somebody's wireless, and they've started to give me dirty looks, so I better wrap this shizzy up and maybe, if you're very very good, I'll finish this up another time.
Listening to: "Seventeen Years" by Ratatat
posted by Laura @ 7/18/2004 02:52:00 PM
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